Lawmakers push for violence-prevention funding
With the state reeling from a jump in gun-related homicides, lawmakers Wednesday pushed for an increase in funding for violence-prevention programs.
While the coronavirus pandemic has dominated headlines and government resources, the shooting deaths of a 3-year-old and 16-year-old in Hartford over the weekend were tragic reminders of another public health crisis that has waged on in Connecticut, largely out of focus.
The chief medical examiner testified this week that the number of homicides in Connecticut increased by 30% in 2020 – rising to 157 from 120 last year.
And last year, a Hearst investigation into gun deaths found that about 10 percent of those killed by guns in the state’s three largest cities over the past decade were people 25 and younger.
The rise in gun violence has been exacerbated by a pandemic that has led to high unemployment rates, threats of eviction, and decreased social and emotional support. Add to that the record spike in gun purchases in the U.S. last year.
For too long, the community groups that intervene to prevent this violence in Connecticut have received patchwork and inconsistent funding, said Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Bridgeport, Wednesday. Despite the success of these violence prevention programs, money instead has gone to police departments and government agencies to address the problem.
With President Joe Biden eyeing $5 billion for gun violence groups across the country, Moore wants violence prevention organizations to come up with a plan for how to spend the money.
At a press conference convened outside the state Capitol, Moore also called for increased state funding for violence prevention programs, including the use of federal stimulus dollars to address the issue.
While the funding should come from federal and state coffers, Moore doesn’t think government should be involved in how its spent. “The people who come from these communities who understand the work that needs to be done” should oversee the money, she said.
One of those groups is Hartford Communities That Cares.
Since 2004, the organization’s response team has served more than 1,200 victims of violent crimes and their families, connecting survivors to mental health and medical care, employment training and other support services, said executive director Andrew Woods. He was among the representatives from community organizations who joined Moore at her press conference.
A large number of gun shot victims are repeat victims, Woods said. If these victims aren’t connected with mental health services and other support after a shooting, they are at increased risk of getting reinjured or worse killed, Woods said.
“In Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven, typically if a gun shot victim is found dead in the streets, a law enforement officer will tell you they had a weapon on them. Why? Because that person is afraid of being revictimized,” he said. “.... That’s what we see playing out day in and day out. That’s the kind of cycle of violence that we seek to interrupt.”
Gun violence can be an almost daily occurence in some communities, and the trauma on those impacted often goes untreated, said Leonard Jahad, executive director of the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program.
“What’s worse than trauma? We have a group of people walking around in this community facing untreated trauma,” said Jahad.
That trauma impacts some of the youngest residents in these communities and their hope for the future, Moore said.
“Do you really think these children who’ve been exposed to this violence believe there is a future for them?” said Moore. “Do you believe there’s any hope for them? Do you think the conversation they have about a 3-year-old being killed makes them believe in their future?”
In the past two years, about $2.7 million in state and federal funds have gone to Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury for violent crime reduction strategies.
The majority of that money, $1.8 million in state funding, went to Project Longevity, a community and law enforcement initiative to reduce serious violence in New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford.
While the state has dedicated $1.8 million to solving the problem, the economic cost of gun violence is close to $1 billion when you add up the money spent on hospitals, police, loss of services and personal injury, funerals, incarceration, said Jeremy Stein, executive director of CT Against Gun Violence.
Stein’s group also wants the organizations “that are doing this kind of boots on the ground community work that don’t involve traditional policing models” to have a say in where future funding and resources are spent.
The group has pushed the Lamont administration to establish an Office of Community Gun Violence Prevention that would seek out funding and spend it on “evidence-based, community-centric programs and strategies to reduce street-level gun violence in Connecticut’s larger urban centers.”
The state responded quickly when faced with the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook, moving to pass some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country, but little movement has been made to combat gun violence in the state’s major cities, said Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven.
“What we’re seeing in our cities is a slow, banal mass killing and this state is doing almost nothing about it” Winfield said. “The places where this is happening and the people who it is happening to are not a priority.”
Like the coronavirus pandemic, gun violence disproportionately impacts people of color.
Sen. Doug McCrory, D- Hartford, said the violence is occurring in poor neighborhoods with high unemployment rates and underfunded schools.
“These people that we’re talking about live in some of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in this country, not just in Connecticut, in this country,” said McCrory.
“Hartford is one of the poorest cities in this country,” he said. “Bridgeport and New Haven are not that far behind.”
The residents in these cities have less access to resources, attend some of the worst schools in the country, and face barriers in the labor market, McCrory said.
“It’s systemic,” he said.